Multiplayer Category

Games in our Multiplayer category are multiplayer online games that share some but not all mechanics in common with traditional MMORPGs. Generally, their “massive” nature is contested. They frequently include OARPGs, online shooters, online strategy games, mobile MMOs, and other pseudo-MMOs that optionally provide single-player, offline, or custom-server support. We formerly categorized Multiplayer titles as “Not So Massively” games. You may also be interested in our MOBA category for PvP-centric arena battlers. [Follow the Multiplayer Online Games category’s RSS feed]

As an online multiplayer RPG, Sea of Thieves is making its own playbook instead of copy-and-pasting features and structure directly from other games. One such deviation from contemporary MMOs is that the pirate title will not let players mix-and-match their own character’s visuals when starting up a new game.

You read that right.

Instead, Sea of Thieveswill randomly generate a handful of swarthy sea dogs from various options, giving players the choice to select one or roll up a fresh batch of Frankenpirates. This design choice is very deliberate, as Rare wants players to embrace crazy-looking characters instead of striving for perfection: “We want people to think, this is my very own Rare-created pirate character. It will encourage players to pick a character who wouldn’t normally be a character they would create in a character creator. It’s not about just making ourselves.”

Dinosaurs deserve some love too, even if they’re oversized grumpy reptiles who keep trying to eat those good-natured players in ARK. The survival sandbox rolled out its TLC Phase 1 patch today that celebrated Valentine’s Day while making a pass (the balance kind, not the sexy kind) at several of the game’s signature beasties.

In the update, five of the prehistoric creatures — the Procoptodon, the Gigantopithecus, the Direbear, the Direwolf, and the Rex — received visual, animation, and ability redesigns. The patch also placed a hard limit on the number of turrets players could plop down in an area and added several quality-of-life improvements.

And if you really were banking on some dino love today, then enjoy ARK’s Mate Boosted event. This increases the mate boosted range, reduces baby food consumption, and jacks up mating, mating recovery, egg incubation, and creature maturing speeds. So go forth and breed your imaginary gigantic pets, you weirdos!

Hope you PvE folks didn’t have your Valentine hearts set on that Fortnite update that was supposed to roll out today because… it didn’t. As we’d previously reported, Save the World mode was supposed to be updated with a themed questline, but it’s apparently been delayed.

“The patch is not set to release tomorrow. We’ll keep you posted on when we do plan on bringing it out though. :)” an Epic rep wrote on Reddit.

On top of that, players were apparently told that gold would reset, so people went out and spent it. The reset also didn’t happen, further inflaming the playerbase, which was already grumbly over the lack of communication and the dramatic shift of the game from being a PvE-centric building sandbox into a battle royale-focused PvP game with Save the World tacked on.

I remember my first time. Unlike many hunters, I didn’t stalk her. In fact, she bumped into me. I was just strolling down the beach, collecting some bugs and BAM! There she was. Larger than life. I was a little scared, and I admit I tried to hide in a bush. She saw right through it. She chased me a bit since, well, I was hiding in a bush, but admittedly, she was also a predator. She wanted me, badly, and I kind of wanted her. We moved from the beach to the forest and even went on a bit of a mountain hike where I was finally able to mount her. I gave a few quick stabs before pulling out my big sword, deeply penetrating her and finally cutting off her tail. Tail cutting is kind of what I’m into…

…eh? I’m talking about my experience in Monster Hunter World, of course. Although, come to think of it, some of the monsters are kind of sexy if you really think about it. You do want to thank about it? Well, considering the season, I guess I can we can try a top ten of the sexiest monsters of Monster Hunter World. I’ve already consulted with one of our sexperts and veteran hunters, Matt Daniel. We had some deep(ly uncomfortable) conversations about criteria and decided to rely on our… um, “gut” instinct. I’ll be going beyond looks and dip into monster personality plus kink factors. There won’t be any discrimination between newcomers or old veterans, and all genders are welcome here. Just, um, no rotting flesh, no matter how great your personality is. Sorry, Odogaron.

Is your Valentine’s day about love, friendship, or free candy from mom? In MMORPGs, it’s about questing, murder, and free loot! So, yeah, kinda the same. Enjoy Massively OP’s guide to this very pink not-a-holiday across the MMORPG genre – and some not-quite-MMOs too!

This is because the popularity and success of the e-sports league is driving up the price of a team buy-in. Initially, the cost was $20 million for each of the 12 teams, but this looks to be on the rise for future franchise owners.

ESPN is estimating that, depending how the first season of OWL pans out, the second season could wield a buy-in price of $35M to $60M. “In the past three months, though, the Overwatch League has exceeded its revenue expectations, and several league sources said that the league is at almost four times its original projection. The league got a reported $90 million, two-year Twitch deal, and its two-year deals with HP Omen and Intel are worth $17 million and $10 million, respectively,” the news agency reported.

The designers behind Fortnite’s Battle Royale mode have plans. What are those plans? You’ll need to go on a dangerous mission to retrieve them by sneaking into the… oh, never mind, you can just read them right here. That was straightforward.

Whether or not you’ll like what you read is a different discussion. Most players will probably like the prospect of 60 FPS on console versions of the game, west coast servers, and new character skins, but the game is also tossing regular submachine guns into the Vault (i.e. a metaphorical box from whence items cannot be pulled out and used). In short, it’s yanking the weapon from the game for the moment.

This isn’t to say that they’re bad, just that this balance change is meant to encourage using other weapons and to shake up the game’s metagame balance; in the future, other items can also be added to the vault and removed as time requires. There are also new social features and limited-time game modes planned, so on a whole the roadmap has lots of cool stuff to look forward to. It’s just slightly less if you love submachine guns.

If leveling and organization get in the way of your true passion in online games — massive PvP siege warfare — then allow Conqueror’s Blade to cut to the chase and give you the experience you crave.

The massively multiplayer medieval war simulator just wrapped its most recent test, with over 10,000 players across the globe trying it out. Now the team is turning its attention to what it’s calling the European X Test (closed beta) in March. Interested parties may register for the test on the website.

“We are honored that so many players really loved playing Conqueror’s Blade, and they gave us a lot of good advice during the beta test,” said Producer Xi. “We’re working hard to deliver an even better gaming experience for the European players in the next test.”

At long last, your nightmare of having moments in the day when you might not be playing PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds is coming to an end. At least, it is if you live over in China; the game has a mobile version there, and you can check out the mobile gameplay just below. Guess what? It looks exactly like the normal version, but with touchscreen controls. Quelle surprise. It’s also available now in China.

If you’re living this same nightmare of having a few moments of not playing the game, we’re sorry to note that there are currently no announced plans to bring this mobile version of the game to the West, as the mobile version was developed by Tencent over in China. Still, you can watch below and hope. Or just accept that you’ll have to sometimes leave the house and not be able to play. One or the other.

Faster-than-light travel may be an impossible dream of our time, but for the three-person crew piloting the Prosperous Universe development ship, it’s all but a reality. The small team announced that it is almost ready to introduce players to how the space sandbox will handle FTL travel and turn over the flight controls to testers to see how they handle it.

We expect mass casualties.

“When jumping into a destination star system, the ships will not arrive directly at the destination planet anymore,” the team explained. “Instead, they appear in a safe distance (0.5 astronomical units at the moment) of the planet and will have to do a short slower-than-light flight to the target.”

Other projects that the team is working on this week include notification alerts that will inform players when something important is happening with their in-game business and laying out a strategy for marketing.

In Sea of Thieves, your character is a pirate roaming the high seas for boxes of treasure, but in real life you won’t need to exchange your own treasures for random in-game treasures. Design director Mike Chapman has stated that microtransactions are possible for the game post-launch, but loot boxes are definitely out of the question for future development. So you might drop a little coin to get a nice skin or cosmetic gear or whatever, but you won’t be looking at lootboxes no matter what.

Of course, if your computer can’t handle the game you probably won’t be looking at anything whatsoever, so you might want to check out the game’s system requirements before eagerly declaring that it’s a sailor’s life for you. The bare minimum specs still require a Windows 10 machine, so if you’ve stuck by an older operating system we’re sorry to inform you that Windows ME is no longer going to keep you in the game. Check out the chart to see if you need to upgrade, and if you refer to buying new hardware as “trimming up the mainsail” in the checkout line, the employees at the store likely won’t care.

Where will you go and what will you do when the zombie apocalypse hits? You better figure it out real fast, pal, because it’s already here.

Dead Maze, the multiplayer zombie survival simulator, officially launched today. Its 2-D free-to-play offerings shambled its way onto Steam, where players can see if they really can make it in the end of the world. Apart from its presentation, Dead Maze sets itself apart from most other zombie titles by putting the focus on social cooperative survival instead of PvP conflict.

“We want to build fun multiplayer games that players around the world can enjoy together,” said Atelier 801 Co-Founder Mélanie Christin. “With Dead Maze, that meant looking at how we can approach a zombie themed MMO game that feels fresh and new for the genre, where cooperation is key. I believe we achieved that with Dead Maze thanks to its unique art style, deep crafting system, and our growing community of players.”

More story campaigns and a player map editor are in the works for future updates. Check out the launch trailer below and see how MJ fared when she was thrown headfirst into this savage world (she’s trying her hand at it again today at 3:00 p.m.!).

Forget roses and chocolates; the best way to tell a friend that you love them is a masterfully executed kill shot. So for this Valentine week, why not take a loved one into Overwatch for a free date… with DEATH?

Blizzard is hosting a free play weekend for its multiplayer shooter this weekend from February 16th through the 19th. Players on the PC and consoles can jump into the game to give it a try for these four days. And this is no skimpy trial version, either, but the full-fledged product with all of its heroes and maps.

It should also be pointed out that players can level up and loot all they like during this period and that this progress will be saved should they decide to purchase the game. Console players will need to have Xbox Live Gold or PlayStation Plus membership to access the promotion.